


Same Time, Next Year

by Fatale (femme)



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternative Universe - FBI, M/M, art thief magnus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-03-31 22:24:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13984578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femme/pseuds/Fatale
Summary: Magnus watches the crowds milling around, counts out the seconds with his foot tap-tap-tapping against the polished floor, resisting the urge to look at his watch. Good security is trained to notice frequent watch-checkers. Robbing a museum is tricky, but there’s a reason he’s known as the absolute best.---Magnus is an art thief and Alec is the FBI agent tasked with bringing him in.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> here we are at the beginning of another multi-parter. you know the drill, this is mostly done because i don't DO abandoned wips, but getting feedback is the only way to trudge through those last boring 5,000 words, you know?
> 
> let me say, i was in the white collar fandom for a couple years, and it was marvelous. i always wanted to write a long-ish heist fic, but never got around to it. so here it is! but i have ruthlessly stolen ideas from white collar, actual historical heists, made up stuff that doesn't exist, and handwaved the rest because this is fanfic, ok?
> 
> betaed with great patience by the incomparable [bonibaru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonibaru/pseuds/bonibaru).

 

 

 

 

Music: The Flower Duet by Leo Delibes

 

Magnus watches the crowds milling around, counts out the seconds with his foot tap-tap-tapping against the polished floor, resisting the urge to look at his watch. Good security is trained to notice frequent watch-checkers. Robbing a museum is tricky, but there’s a reason he’s known as the absolute best.

He has weaved through Europe, been suspected in a dozen elegant heists, finally circling back to America when the heat from Interpol proved too much.

Plenty of people attempt their robberies in the daylight. Of course, the most successful ones use guns and violence. The guns get you armed robbery and life, if caught, and at night, all the best museums ramp up security to minimize the risk.

Across the room, Catarina takes a noisy sip of her drink while teetering alarmingly on sky-high stilettos. Magnus waits for security to sweep the room, tapping out an extra five seconds with his foot and then coughing once to signal Catarina, who takes a step, trips, and sends her drink flying straight onto a Hockney. Magnus grimaces. Hockneys aren’t to his taste, but he already has a buyer lined up, and without a fence, they stand to make a tidy sum.

The crowd gasps as brown soda dribbles down the front of the picture, and security comes rushing in to shuffle the gathering crowd back. Docents get on their walkies, talking furiously with each other. With none the wiser, Magnus slips out of the room, listening to Catarina apologize and be escorted out of the museum.

 

\---

 

Magnus circles the museum twice, head down, scoops a duffle left by Ragnor by the dumpsters and slips on a crisp white coat. On the pocket of his slacks, he affixes a badge lifted off a pretty docent earlier, and slides on a pair of silver-framed wire glasses. Last, he clutches an oversized stainless-steel lunchbox and a tumbler full of coffee. He has about twenty minutes before the techs starts making their way back from lunch. He follows a man in a similar white coat through the back.

“Hold the door,” he calls out, holding up his lunchbox and cup by way of explanation.

The guy swipes his card, then turns around and grins at Magnus. “I don’t know if I’ve seen you here before.”

“Just started,” Magnus lies easily. “Can’t get used to these thirty minute lunch breaks. The Louvre at least gives you an hour.”

The guy’s sandy eyebrows go up. “You came from the Louvre?”

“Oui,” Magnus says as they go through the first security checkpoint. The guard scans the guy’s badge and waves him through.

Magnus gestures at his badge, clipped low on his hip right next to his crotch and holds up his lunchbox and coffee again with an apologetic shrug. The guard hesitates, sees Magnus chatting easily with another employee, then waves Magnus through without looking at the picture.

“Man, I’ve always wanted to go abroad and work for some of the big museums there. What made you come back to the States?”

“Family,” Magnus says and shakes his head ruefully. “What else? It’s a dream there. You should really try to go some time.”

“Yeah? And you’ll give me a good reference?” Blond guy asks, giving Magnus an interested once-over.

“Sure,” Magnus agrees easily.

“Mr.--”

“Hey, I want to say hi to an old friend,” Magnus interrupts. “Catch you later.”

He waits for tall, fair and friendly to take the hint and wander off, then goes to the restoration room, where the Hockney is laid out on a table, ready to be professionally cleaned. “Sorry, Mr. Hockney,” Magnus mutters and takes the box cutter out of his lunchbox. He slashes the canvas carefully following the lines of the frame, bypassing the anti-theft sensors attached there. Then he folds the canvas up like origami and shoves it into his lunchbox with a wince. He got good enough margins that re-stretching the canvas won’t damage the value and the creases can be steamed out later.

Magnus takes the lunch box and heads to the mailroom.

Security checks personnel more carefully as they leave the building than when they enter, and just having the art on him is enough to get him twenty to life with his record, so he’d rather not risk it.

He grabs an empty box, postmarks it to the address set up last week by Ragnor, throws the lunchbox inside and tapes it up. He puts it in the pile to be shipped, and whistling, leaves the mailroom.

He tells the security guard he left his phone in his car and he’ll be right back as he’s patted down. He throws the guard a jaunty wave on his way out the door.

 

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 1

 

 

“This fucking guy is good,” Alec says and hoovers his fourth cup of coffee for the day. Magnus Bane’s case tripped across his desk a week ago and he’s been carrying it around with him ever since, taking it out and poring over the case notes during lunch, before he goes to bed, while he’s brushing his teeth in the morning.

It’s passed through a dozen agents higher on the totem pole than Alec, until it was handed, with a satisfied smirk and a muttered, “good luck,” from Aldertree to him.

Alec only ended up in the White Collar Crimes division because he has the rare combination of a criminal justice degree with a minor in fine arts, which he honestly only pursued so he could meet artsy type boys in college. He had a shameful weakness for soul patches when he was twenty.

He has no real hope of catching Magnus Bane.

He’s been in this division for two years now, but if a dozen agents couldn’t figure out how Bane pulled it off, Alec doesn’t know what Aldertree thinks he can do. But he has to try, he supposes, tracing a finger down the grainy profile picture they managed to get of Bane.

He decides that after he’s done typing up the report on an earlier smash and grab, he’ll pay the museum a visit, and see if he can’t dig up some clues there. His sandwich drips mustard on his tie and he doesn’t even notice until it falls on the report. He swears softly, grabs a handful of tissues and tries to dab the mustard off, but no luck. He’s just spreading it around and making it worse. Alec lets his head thump against his desk loudly.

He’s off to a really great start.

 

\---

 

He knows Bane took a painting from the restoration room. All the techs came back from their lunchbreaks to find an empty frame sitting on the restoration table.

Escorted by a curator, Alec looks over the empty frame in storage--just a sad shell sitting there -- and wills himself to notice something everyone else missed. Fingerprints have been taken (there were none), evidence has been gathered, but nothing that can concretely tie this crime to Bane even if they could find him.

Alec sighs and looks down at his mustard-stained tie.

“Sent the B-team, huh?” the squirrelly curator asks.

“Excuse me?” Alec says, standing to his full height and towering over the curator.

“Sorry,” the guys says. “Bad joke. I get nervous easily. Simon, my name’s Simon.”

On his way out, Alec pauses by the mailroom door. “Do you monitor what goes out?” he asks.

“Why would we?” Simon replies, brow furrowed.

“Let me in there,” Alec says. Simon scurries to unlock it for him. Inside, there are packages of various sizes scattered across a long wooden table.

“We send things to other museums -- and holy fuck, you think that’s how the painting got out of the building.”

Alec takes out the gloves he keeps for handling evidence from his pocket and slips them on, lifting the packages carefully. “Any cameras back here?”

“Of course not, it’s the mailroom,” Simon says, his notable excitement from earlier gone. He looks like a deflated beach ball, sad and directionless.

“Do you keep a log of the mail sent out?” Alec prompts impatiently. Jesus, newbies.

Simon brightens. “Yeah,” he says, scrambling over to a computer. He fiddles with the mouse and clicks through a couple menus. “I can print every package label and a contents log for what was sent out the day of the theft.”

“How about the week?”

Simon whistles. “Sure, but it’s your funeral.”

 

\---

 

Who knew museums sent out so much mail?

Alec spends the next 3 days going over the printouts. Jace comes to help him in the evenings when he gets off work at the precinct. Mostly, Jace just orders Chinese takeout and bitches about his partner, Clary.

They’ve been reprimanded at least three times for breaching protocol, going half-cocked into unknown situations. They generally manage to come out okay, but the sad thing is, Jace is supposed to be Clary’s mentor of sorts, her grounding force. Instead, Clary makes Jace all stupid. Alec likes Clary okay, but he hates that Clary makes Jace take risks that he wouldn’t otherwise. Okay, that Alec’s reasonably sure Jace wouldn’t take otherwise. At least 50% sure.

“Bro,” Jace groans. “How many pen pals does a boring museum have?” He looks up another address on the laptop, only to huff when he sees the address to another museum.

“They’re not pen pals and they’re not boring. They exchange and lend out art, they have newsletters, benefactors, employees, suppliers. I could go on--”

“Please don’t,” Jace says.

Okay, Alec can admit in the privacy of his own mind that they’re a little boring. There is a tiny part of him that’s sort of resentful that he spends most of his time tracking down missing artifacts and art worth more than he’ll ever see in his lifetime for rich people that treat him like the gum stuck on the bottom of their shoes.

In a way, he wonders if Jace doesn’t have the more honest job, the type that Alec was maybe meant for. Jace helps people, saves lives, and writes a hell of a lot of traffic tickets while making googly eyes at his red-haired partner. It’s simple and makes a real difference.

But his parents thought being a beat cop was beneath him, and unlike Izzy and Jace, he caved to their demands in exchange for college tuition, to his great shame. There are aspects of his job - the puzzle, the catching bad guys – which he loves. There is nothing more satisfying than closing a case, not that he’s had much luck doing it or even opportunity. Mostly, he just sits on a lot of boring stakeouts drinking burned coffee.

“Dear Mrs. Pennnyworth,” Jace says in an exaggerated falsetto, “today I sent my BFF at the Lombard Gallery a fetching pre-Christian Calabrian fossilized donkey dick. I wrapped it lovingly in bubble wrap and tied a pretty bow around it.”

Alec laughs despite himself and gets up to grab another couple of beers. Luckily, their apartment is roughly the size of a shoebox, so he doesn’t have far to go.

He doubts there are actually fossilized donkey dicks in museums, but he’s not sure enough to bet on it. Alec has seen some phallus in museums that would make the dudes on Grindr blush. He’s twisting the caps off their drinks, when he suddenly stops. “Why did you say the Lombard Gallery?” he asks, his heart kicking up a notch.

“Uh,” Jace stops and flips back a page. “There was a package sent there. I just looked at it.”

“Jace, the Lombard gallery shut down four years ago. The building’s been empty since.”

Jace really can be a goddamn genius, though usually by accident. Alec, feeling generous, thinks that probably counts, too.

 

\---

 

Jace makes him wait until morning and sober up before going down to the Lombard Gallery to check it out, pointing out that after four months, Bane is almost certainly in the wind. Alec, a little ashamed at needing to have Jace of all people talk reason into him, mulishly agrees. If Jace is telling him he’s out of control and obsessed, then something is seriously wrong with the feng shui in Alec’s life. He’s got to get ahold of himself.

Alec takes a cab downtown because he’s too impatient to take the train. He holds onto the receipt, unsure if he can expense it. If not, then this is going to turn into a goddamn expensive case, which means putting up with another year of living with Jace and his dirty socks everywhere. He tried to talk Izzy into finding a nicer place with them, but she’s a bigger slob than Jace, and besides, she likes hunkering down with her fellow med interns so they can study together and cry over flashcards or whatever it is they do.

He gets the super at the Lombard Gallery to meet him there and let him in, but it’s as he expected: there’s nothing to be found, just empty walls and elegant white space that used to hold contemporary art.

Though occasional maintenance work is done on the building, there’s a fine layer of dust over the whole thing, and the stale, empty feel of a long-neglected space, nothing to indicate that anyone other than Alec has been here recently.

But then again, it’s been shut down for years, so mail wouldn’t be delivered here. It would be forwarded to another address - which means Bane could have had it sent to wherever he’s calling home these days and made a cool five million without even leaving his couch.

Jesus fucking Christ on a cracker. Alec leans against the wall and slides down it until he’s sitting on the floor. This case just keeps getting worse and worse.

 

\---

 

After Alec puts in a request for USPS change of address records, he’s handed a mortgage fraud case, which isn’t difficult so much as it is tedious. By lunchtime, he thinks he has a pretty good idea of what’s going on.

It looks like a basic foreclosure rescue scheme, where the criminal is identifying people in pre-foreclosure, getting them to sign over the deed to their house to an investor and make small payments as rent until they can clean up their credit. But in the meantime the investor sells the house to a straw borrower, creating false equity and then letting the house fall into foreclosure.

It’s an ugly process and Alec has seen it devastate a number of families. It’s crimes like these that he hates the most -- criminals taking advantage of the weakest members of the population. It’s not as glamorous as seizing a stolen Kandinsky, but sometimes Alec thinks those rich fuckers can have it, if they want it so badly. The rich stealing from the far richer, god, what a world to live in.

He kicks his case notes to Financial Crimes to see if they can trace the payments and calls it a day.

There’s nothing else he can do until they get back to him, so he looks around to make sure the coast is clear -- of course it’s not, he’s surrounded by fucking FBI agents -- and slips Magnus Bane’s folder out of his desk drawer.

He skims the list of suspected heists and his eye catches on a familiar name: Graff.

Why does the name ring a bell? He plugs the name into the database and a new hit comes up. The vault was cleaned out recently in the middle of the day. No witnesses present because the store was closed for renovations and all the nearby benches and streetlamps had been freshly painted.

The same MO was used five years before when the same vault was robbed. Broad daylight, wet paint. Alec pulls the case file and thumbs through the sheets carefully. Suspects: Magnus Bane and Camille Belcourt, along with a handful of others that have been picked up for petty crimes in the meantime.

He goes through the recent list of reported thefts, cross-matching them with theorized Bane heists. There’s no rhyme or reason to Bane’s activities other than they’re always flashy and always smart. It can’t be that Camille is in the US; she hasn’t been back on American soil in at least a few years. Last he heard, she was holed up somewhere in Russia with an arms dealer, playing the most sinister game of house that Alec can imagine.

So that means Bane is working alone. But why recreate past glories? Why only the ones with Camille?

Son of a bitch, Alec thinks. He’s writing her a goddamn love letter.

 

\---

 

He marches into Aldertree’s office. “Sir, I’ve got a lead on the Bane case.”

Aldertree leans back and raises an eyebrow. “By all means, do come in.”

“S-sorry, Sir,” Alec says, stopping short and mentally kicking himself. He’s fighting a blush and he’s losing badly.

“Tell me what you found.”

Alec explains how he pieced together the newest heists and matched them up with Bane’s suspected list, and concludes with, “Find his girl, and we’ll find him. He’s recreating the robberies he committed with Camille Belcourt. He’s trying to get her attention.”

“Belcourt -- the name rings a bell,” Aldertree says. “Didn’t they break up in a pretty spectacular fashion?”

“In a manner of speaking. A heist at the French embassy in Bavaria went south and she left him behind. He went to a Bavarian prison for six months before he was able to bust out.”

“And you think he still wants her back?”

“I don’t see what other explanation there is for it. He’s wanted by Interpol, Scotland Yard, and MI-5. He has to stay out of Europe, but I think he’s hoping she’ll come to him.”

“Do you think she will?”

Alec doesn’t know, really. He’s never really understood them, even after spending days poring over their files. As far as he knows, Camille is perfectly happy in her little den of ill-gotten gains, but it’s hard for him to imagine anyone ignoring someone like Magnus Bane doing what could be considered by the morally ambiguous to be an incredibly romantic gesture.

“I think he’s in love, and he hopes so, anyway.”

“Fucked up love,” Aldertree says, rocking back in his chair, looking thoughtful.

“Isn’t it always,” Alec replies.

 

\---

 

Alec can tell Aldertree doesn’t really buy his theory, as evidenced by the fact he doesn’t immediately yank the case from him and give it to a more experienced agent to run point. But he does send along two other agents to help Alec run surveillance on the nearest site that matches Bane’s pattern.

They’ve been cooped up in the surveillance van for 15 hours, which always smells just awful, no matter how many of those little pine tree air fresheners Alec buys, desperately looping them around mics, lights, and taping them to the walls. He feels, looking around, like this is what it must be like to be in a majestic forest, if that forest also smelled like three-day-old bean burrito farts.

A knock on the door makes them all tense. Alec takes out his gun and holds it at the ready as he cautiously opens the door. Sunlight pours into the van and they all groan like mole people seeing light for the first time. Outside, there’s a delivery man blinking owlishly. “Alexander Lightwood?”

“That’s me,” Alec says tersely.

“I’ve got some flowers for you,” the delivery man says with faux cheerfulness. He looks like he’d rather be anywhere but here, with three increasingly irate FBI agents glaring at him. He hands over a clipboard. “Just sign here.”

Gut churning and heart pounding with adrenaline, Alec lowers his gun and slides it back into the holster. He grabs the clipboard, signs on the line, and takes the dozen long-stemmed red roses.

Alec watches the delivery man scuttle off, stares resentfully down at the flowers, and sees a card. He plucks out the card and reads, _Darling, You look ravishing in blue. - M. Bane xoxo_

He steps out of the van on shaky legs and takes a deep breath. Magnus has been three steps ahead of him this whole time. Everyone at the Bureau is going to be laughing at him for _weeks_.

“Godamnit!” Alec says, taking out his earpiece and throwing it on the ground.

 

\---

 

Izzy cackles. “It takes big brass ones to send you flowers on a stakeout.” She finishes the last of the palak paneer, mopping up the sauce and rice with naan and stuffing it into her mouth. She’s always been a surprisingly indelicate eater.

“Yeah,” Alec says, “he’s a real peach.”

It _was_ a little impressive. Shit, it was _really_ impressive. Unlike almost every other aspect of his life, Magnus has Alec's full attention now, which Alec has been told can be both intense and a little off-putting.

They’re sitting on the couch that Jace found on the curb during trash day, and insisted Alec help him bring up, then got stuck on the landing. After four hours of trying various positions, and getting the couch impossibly stuck, they were forced to dismantle the couch, unless they wanted to be those assholes in the building that forced everyone to crawl over massive furniture to get their apartments.

Then they carried the couch to their place, piece by piece, cushion by dingy cushion, and reassembled it, somehow losing half of the pieces along the way. Which is to say, the couch is whole, four years later, but wobbles and creaks alarmingly if the majority of the weight isn’t on the right side to stabilize it.

“Sounds like someone has a crush.”

“I would never. I’m not--” Alec splutters.

“Relax, brother,” Izzy says mildly. “I was talking about him.”

Alec doesn’t believe her for a minute, but it’s not like he can argue the point with any kind of grace, so he just shoots her a dirty look and finishes his food.

“You gonna eat that?” Izzy says, pointing at the last samosa on the coffee table.

It’s a joke between them -- Alec always gives Izzy the last samosa, the last egg roll, the last everything, because she’s his baby sister and he adores her an unreasonable amount, which she exploits shamelessly to get the best food.

“It’s all yours,” Alec says.

Just then, Jace stumbles in, bleary-eyed from a double shift. “Any food left?”

Alec hands him the masala they ordered for him.

Jace looks from Alec to Izzy. “Why does Alec look like he just got stood up by his prom date?”

“That’s just my face,” Alec protests.

“Magnus Bane, the guy Alec’s trying to catch, probably has a crush on him and I think Alec maybe has a little crush back. It’s _adorable_ ,” she tells him, while Jace nods along, shoveling food into his mouth.

“I thought we agreed that was _not_ the case,” Alec says.

“Hm,” Izzy says. “Maybe _you_ did.”

“So why don’t you tell this guy you have a creepy crush on him?” Jace asks.

Alec thinks this must be what the descent into madness feels like. “I do not feel anything for Bane except a pervasive need to bring him to justice.” He suspects he laid it on too thick, when Jace grins at him slowly, understanding dawning in his eyes. “Besides,” Alec continues, feeling like he’s just digging his own grave deeper, “he’s a wanted criminal and I couldn’t find him if I wanted to -- which I do very much, but only for lawful reasons.” _God_ , Alec thinks, would someone just shut him up already?

“Pussy,” Jace says.

“That’s sexist,” Alec says.

Izzy rolls her eyes. “You’ve got to stay off those feminist blogs.” She narrows her eyes at Jace. “He’s right, though, you’re a pig,” she says and smacks him on the back of the head.

Jace makes a few oinking noises at her because he’s all of five years old. Izzy begins slapping at him, and Alec has to sit between them and moderate their fights like he’s always done, pretty much always will do.

Alec leans back on the couch and listens to it creak in protest, feeling warm and full, as he lets the sound of Izzy and Jace arguing wash over him.

Bane, and all the complicated feelings he stirs up, can wait another day.

 

\---

 

Alec pulls information from all the databases he has access to. Interpol is notoriously reticent about sharing their non-redacted files with the FBI, even though only very technically, they’re a part of the same organization. But Alec knows a guy equally dodgy. Used to be MI-5, now occasionally freelances for Scotland Yard and Interpol, just as frequently sells information to the highest bidder. He’d be dead or in an unmarked prison somewhere in the Mojave if he wasn’t so damn useful.

He sends along an encrypted file on a USB drive that Alec tucks into his pocket, unwilling to open at work.

At home, he eats a microwave TV dinner that promises to fill a Hungry-Man up, but mostly tastes like bachelorhood and sadness. He gives up after three bites and pushes it away, boots up his laptop and plugs in the USB flash drive, waiting for the encryption software to kick in.

Once ready, he opens the files and pores over the scant information available on Magnus Bane. Half Dutch, half Indonesian, dead family. Pops in and out of the system for ten years until he hits the majors in a big way.

The legendary Diamond Heist in Antwerp for a total of 20 million dollars. He’d worked on a team of five drilling beneath the vault under the cover of legitimate construction next door until they hit a main line. Two of them dressed as police officers shuffled the public and employees out the jewelry store, turned off the cameras, and cleared out half of the vault in less than fifteen minutes. They’d gotten away cleanly, though with the expertise needed and tracing aliases, Interpol had put together a list of probable suspects. Camille and Magnus had been two of them. Alec wonders if she’d already been planning to betray Magnus even then, or if she’s just opportunistic.

It’s likely that’s where they met. There’s no record of them having been in the same place before that. He imagines Magnus young and alone in the world, pulling small cons until Camille got her hooks into him. No wonder he clung to her so stubbornly.

When you have no real family to speak of, the family you choose for yourself can be a powerful thing.

And now, he’s making excuses for Magnus’ shitty behavior.

Alec looks at the included pictures. He knows what Magnus looks like, but a few grainy photos are to the high res images here what a flashlight is the sun. There’s a mug shot taken early in his career, sly grin on his face, chin at a jaunty angle like he’s on a yacht living it up, not in a poorly lit jail in Boston being fingerprinted by a cop that smells like pimento cheese.

Irritated with himself, Alec slams the laptop shut, polishes off the rest of his beer and gets up to take a shower. He strips off his clothes carelessly and throws them in the direction of the laundry hamper.

In the shower, he soaps up his body, rinses out his hair, and thinks about jerking off, but doesn’t. Unnervingly, he knows exactly who he’d be thinking about, and that’s not someplace he’s ready to go just yet.

He’s just shy of delusional enough to convince himself it’s not a problem.

 

 

 

 


	3. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this whole fic brought to you by [bonibaru](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonibaru/pseuds/bonibaru), who is very patient with me. ;_;
> 
> i feel super bad about how short these chapters are, but it's kind of the way the story demands to be structured. i hope i make up for it by really frequent updates.

 

 

It’s Christmas, and Alec is avoiding his parents at all costs. They never waste an opportunity to make him feel bad that he’s low on the totem pole at the Bureau and single to boot. Also, hopelessly gay just goes without saying, their chilly disapproval blowing over the dinner table like a particularly biting Nor‘easter.

He’s had three relationships in the past six years since he’s come out, one of whom he didn’t even notice broke up with him until three months later. Chris had been sweet and a little boring, unassuming and totally safe. Perfect for him, Izzy had said.

Really great, Jace agreed, if Alec was looking for a body to dry hump through a sheet. Although Chris wasn’t as boring or puritanical as all that. He was kind and funny and good-natured, but Alec lost interest, as he had a habit of doing. It wasn’t Chris’ fault that Alec was fundamentally fucked up and dissatisfied with life. His fatal flaw had been that he simply wasn't complicated enough to pull Alec's focus and hold it. And despite what Jace thinks, being dull isn't illegal.

It wasn’t until he ran into Chris and his new boyfriend at a diner, and Chris said, hesitantly touching his arm, “I tried calling, then I sent you a text when you wouldn’t call me back,” that Alec realized it was over between them, that it had been for a long time, and Chris was maybe a little too good for him. He’d mostly forgotten about Chris, had just scrolled past his messages, all the while blithely going about town thinking he had a boyfriend he kind of treated like shit. Perhaps, Alec isn't such a great person himself and shouldn't be judging other people so harshly.

Basically, he’s an absolute mess and he can’t go through another holiday answering his parents’ questions with answers like, “Yes, I’m still tragically single” and “No, I’m not lead on any active investigations, unless you want to count the cold case they gave me just to haze me because I work with a bunch of assholes.”

His phone rings and he sighs, assuming it’s Izzy’s last-ditch effort to get him to swallow his pride and spend time with family. He spreads out his lunch -- a bagel with half a package of Poptarts, because that’s all they have in the cabinets, and he’s too lazy and unwashed to schlep a hundred feet to the bodega on the corner. The joke’s on Izzy; he has no pride.

“ _What_ , Iz?”

There’s silence on the line. “Darling, should I be jealous?” an unfamiliar, silky-smooth voice says.

“Magnus?” Alec asks cautiously.

“Alexander,” Magnus says, sounding amused.

He shouldn’t wonder how someone who allegedly robbed the MOMA during broad daylight got his contact information, but he’s curious and a tiny bit flattered. “Did you hack into the FBI database to get my phone number?”

There’s a pause on the line, then, “I wish it was that glamorous, but I looked you up in the phone book.”

Even though he knows Magnus is using a burner and won’t be on the line long enough to let his position be triangulated, Alec still boots up his computer and types in the number. While the software works, Alec is free to lean back and prop his feet up on the table. The ratty couch groans with displeasure beneath him.

“I wasn’t sure if I would get you. Are you doing anything important?”

“Sure, avoiding family,” Alec says. “You?”

“Oh, the usual -- crime.”

Alec snorts and looks sadly at his stale bagel with cream cheese and soda. He imagines Magnus at a five-star resort out on the balcony, sitting at a table, sun shining on his golden skin, a spread of delicacies in front of him.

What a life.

But Alec knows that life comes with a price tag. You may not have to pay it immediately, but you’ll pay it all the same. And that price is freedom, peace of mind, and trust. Magnus is chasing some bored ex-girlfriend across the world trying to get her attention and calling up random FBI agents on holidays. What does Magnus have, really, besides a temporarily better view and nicer food?

“Did you get the flowers I sent you?”

Alec grimaces. “Yes. You think I look in good in blue, huh?”

“I believe I said ravishing.”

“Well, you’re going to look really great in orange.”

Magnus makes a wounded noise. “With my skin tone? How dare you.”

“Magnus?”

“Yes, Alexander?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“I’m not sure what you think we’ve been doing for the last five minutes,” Magnus says.

Alec doesn’t know what makes him ask it - maybe the fact that he’s eating alone in his underwear on Christmas - but he blurts out, “Are you lonely?”

There’s dead silence on the line and Alec thinks he’s hung up, but then Magnus says, “Aren’t we all?”

Yes, Alec wants to say. He is lonely, and it’s his own fault for choosing half a Poptart over his brother and sister, who might have needed his support dealing with their parents; for always drifting away from boyfriends who just want to get to know him better; for hiding himself in a job he only kind of likes.

The phone beeps to let him know Magnus has ended the call. Only so much honesty for today, Alec guesses. That asshole would have to end on a cool line, though.

His laptop beeps to let him know a position has been found, but it doesn’t really matter. Magnus won’t be there. That’s the thing about being on the run -- you never, ever put down roots, by circumstance as much as choice. So what’s Alec’s excuse?

His phone rings again. It’s Izzy, probably wondering where he is. He sighs and sits up to answer. He might go see his family; at least he has a family to annoy him.

 

\---

 

New year, new start, Alec promises himself. He’s going to catch Magnus Bane, close his other cases, and get off Aldertree’s shit list. He’s confident he can do at least half of that.

Now that he roughly knows what pattern Magnus is following, it’s easier to track him.

He sets up a pinboard in the living room, puts Magnus’s photo in the center and his known associates along the left side, the places he’s hit in a column at the top left-hand corner and places he’s likely to hit next in a column on the bottom right. He runs strings from each heist to the suspected crew. It looks a little crazy, but it works to see it laid out in stark terms. Magnus is his target, a criminal, an enemy.

He gets a tip there’s something going down at the Castellani Art Museum. Of course, he could be totally wrong. His tip came through a guy known on the streets, rather colorfully, as Jimmy the Snitch, which is good, Alec guesses, if he’s snitching to the FBI, but he finds that people known for snitching rarely get useful information fed to them. He crosschecks the museum against the list of possible Magnus hits, and it’s a match.

Jace looks at the increasingly busy pinboard with amusement and creeping worry. “Should I leave you alone with your thoughts, Rain Man?”

“Would you trust a tip from someone named Jimmy the Snitch?” Alec asks philosophically.

“Hell, no,” Jace replies. “I know Jimmy and he sucks.”

“If the tip’s good, then I’m no better than you and Clary. If it’s bad, I look like a douchebag in front of everyone. Again.” Alec taps a pen against his bottom lip, thinking.

“Okay, first off, we’re great cops. Second, if you want, I could come with. I’ve got the next couple of days off.”

Izzy would call him all of the ugly names in the book if she knew what he was planning, and probably a few made up ones for the hell of it, which is why he carefully lies to her.

“You need bro time?” she says over the phone. “I don’t even know what that means.”

“It means…stuff,” Alec says defensively. He’s great at this.

“Whatever,” Izzy says. “Just don’t watch anything too sexy together. You know it makes you both weird afterward.”

What he mostly regrets is telling Izzy why he and Jace couldn’t make eye contact for a week after watching Eyes Wide Shut by accident on the couch together one night.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Alec says dryly.

 

\---

 

Because Alec makes the worst life decisions often at Jace’s behest, he takes two personal days and drives them both up to Niagara University where the museum is.

The Castellani is funny, in that it’s big enough to house some decently important works but too small to be able to afford sophisticated security or even the massive premiums necessary to fully insure the art it holds. He’s contacted the museum to obtain the night guard’s rotation schedule, and to notify the guard that he’s going to be around, so Alec doesn’t get accidentally tasered in the ass.

Jace and Alec wait until nightfall, holed up in their hotel room watching garbage TV, before heading out. He leaves Jace at the front and circles around the back, with instructions to text every ten minutes.

He approaches the back door carefully and feels across the edge. It’s taped open, which means the alarms have been disarmed. All the security measures in place, and they’re foiled by a piece of masking tape and wire-cutters.

When he looked over the case notes earlier from the previous Castellani heist, it seemed the Agents had suspected an inside job but hadn’t been able to prove anything. It’s looking more and more likely that they were right.

Alec slips through the door soundlessly. He doesn’t know what he expected. Actually, that’s not true. He expected to find nothing, so no one’s more surprised than him when he creeps into the back of the museum and comes face to face with Magnus Bane.

He raises his weapon and points it Magnus. “Freeze,” he says softly. "FBI."

Magnus’ eyes are wide as he raises both hands. “You’re taller than I imagined.”

“I get that a lot.” Alec doesn’t want to say what he thinks about Magnus. His pictures, which Alec has stared at every night for half a year until they’ve been seared into his memories, until his face is the first thing he thinks of when he gets up in the morning, and the last thing he thinks about before he goes to bed each night, don’t even begin to compare to him in real life.

“And much better looking up close.”

That’s not -- okay, Alec doesn’t hear that as often. It’s not like he’s a troll; he knows he is, as Jace puts it, “a big handsome dude that other dudes would like to climb like a tree” but hearing it from Magnus, it sounds completely different. It sounds like something special.

“Hands against the wall.”

“I think I once saw a pornographic film that started out this way.”

“You armed?”

“Of course not,” Magnus says. “You know I never carry weapons.”

“Have to ask,” Alec says, patting Magnus down and trying not to think very hard about what’s beneath his palms. Alec thinks he’s also seen that movie.

“Sure,” Magnus says.

Alec takes a step back and gets his cuffs, excitement so high he can taste it on his tongue, buzzing beneath his skin. “I do have one question.”

“Shoot. Or, you know, ask your question,” Magnus says, body twisted around and eyeing Alec’s gun. “I feel like I should be really clear about that.”

“Magnus,” Alec asks, “why are you doing this?”

“You’ve obviously figured out why, or you wouldn’t be here.”

“It wasn’t that hard,” Alec lies.

“Wasn’t it? Plenty of other people have failed, Alexander.”

Alec doesn’t share that he fears what brought him here is single-minded obsession and sheer dumb luck. “You’ve got to let go of Camille, Magnus,” Alec says instead. “She’s not worth this. Not again.”

His answer, when it comes, is soft. “I know she doesn’t love me.”

“What tipped you off? Was it letting you rot in prison? Or the fact that she can’t be bothered to come to you now that you’re free? Jesus, Magnus, you’re letting her make a fool of you.”

“Doesn’t love make fools of us all?” Magnus asks, with a small bitter twist to his mouth.

“I wouldn’t know,” Alec snaps irritably.

“Haven’t you ever been in love, Alexander?”

“No,” Alec says simply, the handcuffs sliding shut with a soft snick.

“More’s the pity,” Magnus says. “Love is terrible sometimes, but it can be a grand distraction.”

“Oh, yeah? And what did that grand distraction do for you?”

“Kept you busy,” Magnus says, just as Alec feels a cold muzzle against his back.

Alec raises his hands and steps back from Magnus. “I thought you said you weren’t armed.”

“I’m not,” Magnus says. “I didn’t say anything about my partner, though.”

Alec closes his eyes and breathes deeply. Of course, Magnus never works alone.

“Key?” Magnus asks, then grins wickedly. “Or if you prefer, I could find it myself.”

“Right pocket! Right pocket!” Alec yelps.

Magnus fishes around for the key, taking, Alec thinks, an inordinate amount of time. He knows his own pockets well; they aren’t that big.

He pulls out the silver key and hands it to Alec, who uncuffs him. Alec doesn’t know why he feels a little betrayed. Magnus is a criminal; it’s what criminals do. It’s like falling in love with a porn star and getting mad when they sleep with other people.

Magnus pulls him over to an enormous iron figural statue and loops his arms around what Alec supposes is supposed to be a leg. Alec leans into the cool metal, realizes he’s eye-level with the crotch and glares at the smooth mound like its done something to personally offend him, and Magnus makes a funny little choking sound.

Carefully closing the cuffs around Alec’s wrists, Magnus says conversationally, “So, young Agent Lightwood, am I everything you thought I would be? Do I live up to the legend?”

“You know you do,” Alec admits gruffly. “Stop fishing for compliments.” Magnus is everything and more. Far more. “And me?” he asks, unable to help himself.

Magnus’ eyes, when they meet his, are searching and curious. “You’re not at all what I expected.”

 

\---

 

When Jace finds him fifteen minutes later, he laughs himself sick before grabbing the keys Magnus thoughtfully left in the breast pocket of Alec’s suit.

“How’d you find me so quickly?”

“Had a funny feeling, followed the security guard and watched him cut the camera feed. I knew you’d be in trouble, so I retraced your route around the back, felt the tape, and found you in here.” He pulls the handcuffs off and Alec massages his wrists.

Alec forgets sometimes that Jace is a good cop, capable of being one of the very best. It’s both a terrifying indictment of the NYPD, and the reason they put up with his horrible personality. Alec’s sole quibble with Jace has never been his instincts, but his staunch refusal to adhere to policy. Which Alec normally does, because when he doesn’t, he ends up handcuffed to an ugly statue.

Through the open door, Alec can see lights flashing, blue and red, lighting up the sculptures like living things, grotesque and distorted.

If the universe is trying to tell him something, he’s getting the message loud and clear.

 

\---

 

February finds him working on a lapping scheme where an enterprising clerk is modifying accounts receivables to hide stolen payments, then applying the next round to cover the theft and so on. It’s not overly difficult to follow the money trail, but when it’s happening on a grand scale involving thousands of dollars and a hundred accounts, you get what Alec’s got on his hands: a big fucking mess.

He’s been pulled off the lead on the Bane case after the massive Castellani fuckup, but he’s still, technically, part of the team, for whatever measure of a team there is. The trail has gone cold as far as Alec can tell. Magnus is no longer following any kind of pattern at all.

He overhears an agent telling Aldertree that there’s been chatter that an Inspector Adrien Martin from Interpol has entered the US to track down Magnus, despite the fact that Interpol has no real jurisdiction here.

Alec knows Martin -- everyone does; he’s a bounty hunter with a badge, the very worst kind of cop, a creep with no morals who’d much rather bring back his prisoners dead than alive. The thought of him chasing after Magnus makes Alec very, very afraid.

He doesn’t have time to do anything about it other than worry uselessly. Izzy’s getting a few people together to celebrate his birthday that evening after work. She’s threatened him with bodily harm if he skips out to work late again.

When he gets to the place Izzy picked out, Clary’s sitting at a table with Izzy talking quietly while Jace is at the bar, hitting on a pretty blonde. It’s a thin, childish ploy to make Clary jealous. Alec feels kind of bad that Jace is being such a simpleton. Then again, judging by the jealous looks Clary keeps shooting them, it’s working.

None of them let Alec pay for any of his drinks, buying round after round for the table. He laughs at the appropriate parts, makes small talk, and forces his body to relax back into his chair. No matter how hard he tries, though, he can’t drink enough to ease the sick tangle of uneasiness in his gut, or the way he thinks of Magnus asking him if love makes fools of everyone.

Around one in the morning, Alec leaves Jace at the bar and stumbles home. On his way in, he checks his mail and finds a small package wrapped in brown paper. He tucks the package under his arm and goes up to their apartment, gets ready for bed, changing into workout shorts and a t-shirt with a loose, stretched-out neck that he can’t be bothered to throw away.

He’s lying in bed, slightly drunk, when he remembers the package carelessly tossed on the counter. He rolls over with the idle thought that it could be a bomb. His eyes fly open. Or it could be another stack of books from his parents about how to better himself. Both would be equally devastating.

Alec leaps out of bed and grabs the package, takes a knife from the drawer and carefully slides it under the tape. Inside is another box wrapped in fancy flocked paper, thick and velveteen against his fingers. Tucked inside that box, tissue surrounding it like a perfect little bird’s nest, is an expensive bottle of sandalwood cologne with an absurdly long and appropriately pompous French name that Alec can’t even begin to pronounce.

Underneath it is a white card that flutters to the ground. Alec reads it as he picks it up.

_Happy Birthday, Alexander. - M. Bane xoxo_

 

 

 


	4. Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ho hum. was just planning to post interlude, the final chapter, and epilogue tomorrow, but I'm just killing time until the new season, so why not post this part today?

  
Interlude:

  
Music: Waltz of the Flowers by Tchaikovsky

 

Dot Rollins is one the foremost experts in security systems, and when she says a system is state of the art, Magnus is inclined to be worried.

He’s dealt with sensor detectors before in a museum in Vienna, but not with two guards cycling through every thirty minutes and certainly not down a long corridor with a partner. He’s not actually sure how they can both manage to avoid the lasers in the amount of time it’ll take to get to the small Matisse portrait and back.

“It’s a challenge,” Dot says, placing black footsteps on the warehouse floor and consulting a printout in her hand critically.

Dot comes highly recommended and they’ve crossed paths before, spent a few boozy nights together celebrating, but they have never worked together in a professional setting. Magnus only ever works with a crew once.

“Can I help with anything?” he asks, trying not to let the worry bleed into his voice and tilts his head at the black footprints looping across the floor in a strangely familiar pattern.

“Almost done,” Dot says and measures out the last few footprints. She sits up and wipes her hands off. “There!”

“Is that a--”

“Waltz!” she holds her hands out to Magnus. “I know you can dance. I’ll even let you lead this time.”

Magnus takes his place and pulls her close. “I assume we’re following the footprints?”

“Exactly. We can’t even be a centimeter off. Anything crosses those lasers, and thousand pound pure titanium security gates close off all the exits and the cops get alerted.” She takes out her phone, turns on a song, pulls the earbuds out and gives one to Magnus. A slow waltz begins and Dot starts the stopwatch. They waltz across the floor slowly, making sure to get the foot placement just right, then repeat it again, faster, picking up speed each time.

After three hours, Dot says, panting, “That’s not the type of workout I usually get with you.” She hands him a water bottle and Magnus drinks it gratefully. “Think we’ve got it down?”

"One more time,” Magnus says and holds out a hand.

 

\---

 

They work out the rest of their plan and Dot goes over security details with him Afterwards, Dot says, “I need a shower.” She smiles flirtatiously at him. “Feel like joining me?”

Any other time, Magnus would be tempted. Actually, he’s more than a little tempted right now, because he loves blowing off a little steam before a big heist, especially with someone as fantastically bendy as Dot, but he can’t seem to forget the way Alexander’s chest felt beneath his hands, or the way he caressed his wrists as he slapped a pair of handcuffs on him, almost as if apologizing for their roughness.

Alexander, with his analytical gaze, insatiable curiosity, and gentle hands. Who, in the middle of arresting Magnus, stopped to give him _life advice_.

He remembers hearing chatter of the FBI’s wunderkind being assigned to his case and feeling curious about whatever pale nerd they managed to scrape out of his parent’s basement. He was sitting at a café down the street watching the FBI’s not-at-all subtle surveillance van looking for him and being shocked at the tall well-built man that stepped out to accept the flowers Magnus sent. The note had been playfully coy but wasn’t as mysterious as it seemed. Magnus had a name, but not a face, and both men were wearing blue. Everything was slight of hand.

Possibly, Magnus has some serious issues. If the idea of getting arrested by cops turns him on so much, then he should probably seek the services of a dominatrix and look into another profession. He’s a high school drop out; he’s not actually qualified for anything other than a glamorous life of flipping burgers. He wonders what his life might have been like if he’d stayed in school, had never sauntered into a life of crime, but he can’t imagine it, living life without the thrill of seeing something beautiful and taking it.

“Another time,” Magnus says and is gratified to see Dot look disappointed.

“Someone steal your heart, Magnus Bane?”

“Never,” Magnus scoffs. He does not add that no one to his recollection has ever tried to steal it, if he even has one. He sometimes doubts that, too.

“Bachelor for life, huh?”

“Oh, Darling, you know I value my freedom above all else,” he says, but she doesn’t seem convinced.

 

\---

 

At the museum, Dot starts her stopwatch and hands Magnus an earpiece. The hallways look clear, plain white marble as far the eye can see. But if he tilts his head at just the right angle, looks out the corner of his eye, and concentrates somewhere on the wall beyond, a dangerous poppy field of red lasers appears, each splash of color costing him ten years of his life.

The familiar strain starts up, and they waltz through the gleaming white corridor, holding their breath the whole way. If they went separately, they wouldn’t have enough time and both of them have to be there to lift the painting and disarm the pressure sensor at the same moment.

Dot’s pretty ingenious, Magnus thinks, as he feels the warmth of her body against him, her smaller hands held firmly into his. A dance is much easier to memorize than random movements. As long as they remember to tuck their shoulders at the same time and place their feet just right, they should get down the corridor in under five minutes, leaving them five to get back, five to lift the painting, and fourteen to get the hell out.

Easy, Magnus thinks, gasping as they reach the end of the sensors, to the display where the portrait of the young girl hangs, frozen in time, forever placid and a little bemused.

Magnus slides the clippers out of his backpack as Dot slips her hands around the frame. She nods at Magnus, lifts the frame just as Magnus snips the wires, red, blue, and black, in that particular order, while holding pressure against the weight sensor. He takes a deep breath and pulls his hand back. Silence.

Dot grins at him and hands the portrait over, and Magnus uses a knife to slice the picture out of the frame. He slips the canvas carefully into his backpack and leans the empty frame carefully against the wall.  
He walks to the edge of the sensors where Dot meets him. She pulls her earpiece out of her pocket, fumbles it, and Magnus watches in slow motion horror as it tumbles towards the ground. He lunges forward, balancing on his toes, and catches it just before it falls into the sensors' proximity.

Magnus glances at his watch. They don’t have time to waste now; they’re running behind schedule. He grabs Dot and they start their slow waltz back.

His heart doesn’t stop pounding until they’re past the corridor and into the atrium of the museum. Magnus resists the urge to check his watch again. They don’t have an extra second to spare now. The guard will be around the corner and notice the missing portrait in less than five minutes. From there, it’s a mad dash to the door.

Maybe their timing was off, maybe the dropped earpiece cost them a minute they couldn’t afford, or maybe the guard just decided to be an asshole and cut his dinner break short, but the emergency lights spring on and the alarms blare. Magnus, closer to the exit than Dot, springs through it just as the doors come down.

“Magnus!” Dot gasps, eyes wide with fear, skidding to a halt and grabbing the bars. They have fifteen minutes before the police arrive, less than that before the guards manage to cover the exits. Magnus should leave, every muscle in his body is screaming at him, but instead, he drops to his knees and pulls out his knife. He reaches around the corner of the wall and pries the cover off the security override pad.

He uses his knife to dig out the soft buttons to the wire beneath. There’s a thousand of them. Oh, _fuck_.

Footsteps echo down the corridor.

“Go, Magnus,” Dot whispers urgently. “Just go. There’s no use in both of us getting caught.”

“Can’t, I can’t,” Magnus mutters, sweat running down his face. He’s always prided himself on staying cool during heists, but he doesn’t know which wires to cut, so he starts cutting them at random and praying for a miracle. Behind him, he can hear sirens wailing in the distance. The footsteps are coming closer; they’ll be here in seconds. It’s no use, the gates won’t open. He stares at the panel, uncomprehending.

It's a lesson he's heard, but he's never fully understood until now: There is not always a cheat. There is not always a way out. In the end, the house always wins.

Magnus stands up, looks at Dot’s terrified eyes, and feels something in himself break.

“Go!” Dot screams.

Magnus hands her the knife, and hands shaking, eyes blurry, he goes.

 

 

 


	5. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this is it! i will post the epilogue shortly, but the story is probably stronger without it. what can i say, i just like really solidly happy endings. if you don't like sap, you should stop here. if you're like me and can't handle endings that don't make it really clear magnus and alec live in blissful ecstasy, read on.

 

 

 

Alec gets pulled into a meeting to be updated on Magnus’ case.

He’s suspected in the theft of a recent Matisse. His partner, Dot Rollins, was picked up last night and is in questioning, but she won’t give up Bane.

Magnus must have the painting, but how he intends to unload such a hot item, Alec couldn’t guess. No one at the Bureau talked, but the press still got wind of the story and the heist has made the front of all the major newspapers. It’s even been covered by the lady blogs Alec reads in his spare time.

After the meeting, he heads down to the interrogation floor, finds out which room Dot is being held in, and stands at the one-way glass.

She’s sitting alone, hands cuffed to the table, head bent down low.

He looks at her profile critically, sipping his coffee. She’s a beautiful woman: high, sharp cheekbones, straight dark hair. She looks tired but clear-eyed. He knows she hasn’t been suspected of working with Magnus before, so why the loyalty?

Earlier, Alec went to the museum, saw the shattered override panel and doubted Dot could have done that herself, which means Magnus had stayed after the alarm sounded and tried to help her. That means something real to Alec, but it’s not like he’s going to nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize or anything. He still robbed the damn museum.

Still, if people are only the sum of their worst impulses and moments, then why ever try to do better?

After a few days, the painting pops up in Paris, Tel Aviv, and bizarrely, Titograd in Montenegro. Magnus couldn’t have gotten it out of the country; he can’t leave and the FBI clamped down on customs tighter than a virgin on prom night after the theft.

Hands in his pockets, Alec rides the elevators down to get a soda from the vending machines. By the time it reaches the first floor, Alec’s figured it out and he’s laughing.

Bane leaked the theft himself and already had multiple forgeries with fences set up in different countries. Once the news of the theft reached international buyers to let them know the Matisse was on the market, it would be easy to sell, but the trick is, they’d all have to be unloaded at once.

The portrait itself is worth upwards of $15 million, though it would likely go under market value due to it being so hot and no time for a bidding war. Even at half-price, Magnus still made just shy of $22.5 million. Not bad for a Tuesday night.

 

\---

 

On Friday morning, Alec gets the address change forms he requested months ago. The US Postal Service can’t stop dicking him around at every turn. They lose his packages, fold his magazines in half, and fuck up his investigations.

He prints them out and scans over them, eyes catching on a name. Thomas Crown, really, Magnus? Alec has to physically stop himself from rolling his eyes. Yes, Magnus is very smart; yes, he’s one of the best.

But Alec knows for a fact that his biggest heist was pulled off using a 20 ft ladder and a box cutter.

Alec pulls up the address belonging to a Thomas M. Crown, which of course leads him to another address change, to another one, and then, finally, to a PO. box in Queens. He knows a friendly judge and sends him a warrant for the PO box to sign off on. While he waits, he types up his reports and catches up on paperwork.

Alec finishes up a pump and dump case, where investors in start-up tech and artificially inflating the price of a stock, getting gullible investors to put in money, then pulling out their own stock at the inflated price, leaving their confused investors with worthless stock and losing their life savings.

He makes the arrests by lunchtime, kind of embarrassed by the congratulations he gets at the water cooler. It’s not like the case was hard or anything.

Once the warrant comes through, he ducks into Aldertree’s office to give him a quick update, then takes a cab to Queens and gets the postmaster to open the PO box.

Inside, is a small white card with a phone number.

Alec slides his phone out of his pocket and dials the number.

“Alexander!” Magnus says. “I knew you’d get my message. You’re terribly clever, aren’t you?”

“Not really,” Alec mumbles, and steps out of the post office and squints his eyes against the sun, unreasonably bright for Spring. He needs to get sunglasses, but then he’d feel like every cop cliché, from his wingtips to his boring tie.

Alec looks down. Maybe not so boring, he thinks, studying his blue tie with tiny gold fleur-de-lis dotting the front. It was a gift from his parents, silky material slightly out of his price range, and a bit too flashy for his own tastes, but he’d selected it this morning, and tried not to think about how Magnus liked him in blue. “Fucking sun,” he mutters, using his hand to shield his eyes.

Over the line, Magnus chuckles. “I love the heat and sun, myself.”

“Does it remind you of where you’re from?”

“My, my, someone’s been doing their homework.”

“Yeah,” Alec says, “the FBI tends to do that.” He doesn’t tell Magnus about the files he obtained just shy of legally, even though he has the feeling Magnus would be thrilled. “I caught your encore. Little flashy even for you, don’t you think? A waltz, Magnus?”

“Just flashy enough. Got your attention, didn’t it?”

Magnus caught Alec’s attention without even trying, but Alec isn’t about to tell him that. He wanders over to the parking lot and sits on the curb. It’s not dignified, but nothing about this conversation really is.

“You like all eyes on you?”

“What’s the point of a performance without an appreciative audience?”

Alec clears his throat. “I read the case notes. Your partner was arrested.”

The response, when it comes, is terse. “I noticed that, too.”

“Why’d you go back for her? You were free and clear. You’ve never worked with her before, there’s no history.” That Alec knows of. When he thinks of Magnus, he knows he’s only seeing half of the picture, and it drives him crazy, like watching a 3D movie without the glasses, blurry and out of focus, and knowing he's missing the most interesting parts.

“I don’t leave my associates twisting in the wind. Bad for my reputation and all.”

Alec doesn’t really follow his gut -- that’s more Jace’s territory -- but Magnus always seems to be making him do new and surprising things. There’s something in his tone setting off alarm bells in his mind and Alec follows that, picking and pulling at something he suspects Magnus would rather he leave alone. “You sure that’s all it is? Magnus, why don’t you ever work with the same crew twice?”

Instead of answering, Magnus says with false levity, “I assume that you’re tracing this call.”

“Sure,” Alec lies. The thought hadn’t even occurred to him. He mostly just wanted to talk to Magnus.

“Then I suppose we’re out of time,” he says and hangs up.

Aren’t they always? Alec thinks and slides his phone back in his pocket.

He flips the card in his hands, studying the distinctive subtle crosshatched texture, recognition tugging at his memory.

When he was fourteen, his family stayed at the Hilton Hotel in New Orleans while on vacation. It had been hot and muggy there, only made all the more miserable by the fact that his parents could barely pretend to get along, and Alec couldn’t help but notice the way his eyes lingered on every half-clothed young man they passed.

It was a lousy and confusing two weeks, but he does remember his dad’s note on the refrigerator telling Alec he’d be back later and knowing with a sick feeling, his dad was off to see a lady friend while his family lounged by the pool. Alec remembers how he’d studied the note as if by touching the words, he could understand his father just a little better through osmosis, how he could throw his cushy -- objectively _good_ \-- life away for such a nebulous idea as happiness.

This stationary looks too similar to be a coincidence, and Magnus agreed about the weather, which means he’s probably nearby. It’s rainy season and theirs is the only dry patch on the East Coast.

There’s a small possibility he’s wrong, but he’d be willing to bet his meager life savings that the Hilton in Midtown still uses the same stationary.

 

\---

  
He gets a cab to Midtown, grits his teeth and tries desperately not to think about how much today is costing him. If things keep up this way, he and Jace will have to share a bed together at a nursing home.

He flashes his badge and finds out a person that fits Magnus’ description has been staying in the executive suite, because of course. Alec makes his way down the hall and stops in front of the door, heart thudding in his chest, and knocks once. Unlike all of their other interactions, he does expect Magnus this time, but somehow the bastard still manages to surprise him. He opens the door wearing nothing but a fluffy white towel, hair slicked back and skin wet. Through sheer willpower alone, Alec keeps his eyes trained on Magnus’ face.

“Oh, dear. It seems like every time meet, I’m at a disadvantage.”

“Yes,” Alec says, “being a criminal is very hard. My sympathies. You should really check to see who’s at your door before you open it.”

Magnus tuts and turns back towards his hotel room, leaving the door open for Alec. “Who says I didn’t?”

Alec follows him and doesn’t bother to pull out his gun. They both know he’s not going to use it.

“So, how’d you find me?” Magnus says conversationally, as he drops his towel.

Alec blinks slowly.

“--Alexander? Alexander?” Magnus is saying, and Alec has the distinct impression that Magnus has been saying his name for a while.

“Yes?” Alec says, his voice thin and reedy.

“I should probably put on some clothes,” Magnus says delicately and steps over to the closet to quickly pull on a suit.

At a loss and trying not to stare like a complete pervert, he sits on the edge of the bed. “Magnus, you have to let me take you in. If you leave, Interpol will hunt you down and kill you.”

“Ah, yes, the enterprising Inspector Adrien Martin.”

“You know about him and you’re still in Manhattan?” Alec asks, exasperated.

Magnus looks down as he fastens the tiny mother-of-pearl buttons carefully. “There’s a lot of interesting stuff in Manhattan, what can I say?”

“I’m flattered,” Alec says.

“Who says I’m talking about you? I could have wanted to see School of Rock on Broadway. Maybe I have tickets to Hamilton.”

“Wait, do you? Those are really hard to get.”

“No,” Magnus says glumly. “I guess I could steal some.”

“Okay,” Alec says. “This conversation is super cute and all, but I’m taking you in for your own good.”

Magnus is impeccably dressed in a silky purple shirt and tight black pants, but something about his expression makes him seem less covered up than he had been in the towel. He looks sensational and far too expensive for Alec. Alec pulls a thread out of the comforter resentfully.

“It’s been a long time since someone’s cared about me this much.”

“I don’t--that--” Alec tries lying feebly and mostly just embarrasses himself.

“If I asked you to come with me, would you?”

Alec had, during restless nights where sleep was as elusive as Magnus himself, idly allowed himself to think about it. What it would be like to be weightless, without the slow gravity of his family troubles, his job, and his own unhappiness; what it might be like to wake up next to him every morning and know that Magnus was his if Magnus was a slightly better man or Alec was slightly worse? If circumstance and fortune hadn’t pulled Magnus one direction and Alec in another? He likes to believe there's a world in which they could have been together.

Would they be happily evading the law, kissing while tangled up in white sheets, the warm breeze of the Mediterranean drifting through the open windows? Or would they both be cops, working long hours, and sharing beers at home, eating shitty takeout and poring over case notes, trading off when all the words started to blur together? Both sound wonderful to Alec but ring false. There is only this reality where Alec lives, and they’ve both made their choices.

Alec isn’t a man built for lies, no matter how lovely.

“No,” Alec says, shaky and sure. “I’m not art or diamonds. I can’t be stolen, Magnus.”

Magnus smiles sadly. “On the first point, we’ll have to agree to disagree. On the second, more’s the pity, but I understand. I’m not certain I would respect you nearly as much if you were the type of person that could be stolen.”

“Really?”

“Fuck, _no_. Run away with me, Alexander.”

Alec can’t help but laugh.

“One last wish before you whisk me off to prison forever?”

“We’re not going on vacation,” Alec says, exasperated. “What do you want?”

“A kiss.”

He never lets himself have anything, always waiting for a better or more appropriate time, and his life has culminated into a series of missed opportunities. Where, for all his careful self-restraint, has living a good life lead him? Bored and alone, mostly.

Alec nods, tilts his face up and waits.

Magnus telegraphs his move, and Alec has all time in the world to avoid it, but he doesn’t. He lets himself have this.

Magnus’ lips press against his, sweet and sure, sighing into the kiss as his tongue swipes at Alec's lower lip. “That’s the problem with me,” Magnus says sadly as he pulls back. “I’ve always wanted beautiful things I can’t have.”

Alec begins to feel foggy around the edges. Oh fuck, _no_. His eyes dart down to Magnus’ lips, suspiciously glossy now that he knows what to look for -- a thin coating of sedative spread over a wax seal. The Goodnight Kiss. Izzy had told him about it, men wandering into the E.R. when she was on call, groggy and confused, inevitably robbed. She and Alec had a good laugh at the stupid men who were taken in by a hooker with a plan or the promise of a quick easy lay, and agreed that men that stupid probably got what they deserved.

Comeuppance is some real bullshit, Alec decides.

“I’m sorry,” Magnus says soothingly, steadies Alec’s arm as he jerks back, disoriented, room spinning unpleasantly. “I truly am, but if it makes you feel any better, it really was a divine kiss. Everything I dreamed it would be.”

“Dreamed of me?” Alec mumbles, barely able to string together two words, let alone an entire sentence.

Magnus’ voice is curiously gentle as the colors in the room darken and bleed together. “Oh, yes, you have no idea. I do dream of you. It’s shameful how much I dream of you.” Magnus follows him down, easing Alec’s weight slowly to the bed, hands cradling his face once he’s there.

He must be strong. Alec had once twisted his ankle on a hike and had to lean heavily on Jace, listening to Jace complain and call Alec “one heavy asshole” the whole way back. Maybe he says it out loud, because, above him, Magnus says, “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with you, Alexander,” tenderly, like he really means it. The sun catches his eyes, turning them gold and green, like the trees in the suspended moment between summer and autumn, and Alec is back on the trail, pulling crisp air into his lungs, the blue sky open and endless.

Alec’s fingers, nearly totally numb by now, fumble and then there’s a click as the handcuff snaps around Magnus’s wrist, the other attached to his own.

Magnus looks down, shocked. “I feel like we’ve done this before. You know I can get these off in less than five minutes.”

“B-backup,” Alec mumbles through tingling lips, tongue heavy and useless in his mouth. “Backup here in two.”

They’re actually probably already here. Alec was just supposed to keep Magnus distracted.

He may be kind of crazy about Magnus -- teetering on the knife-edge of consciousness, he can admit that to himself -- but he’s not a total idiot.

“You tricky fucker,” Magnus whispers admiringly.

  
\---

  
“So you kissed him, huh?” Izzy says, first thing when Alec opens his eyes. He’s lying in a bed, thin scratchy sheets pulled up to his chest.

“Iz, fuck, I’m in the hospital,” Alec whines. His head feels like it got run over by a Mac Truck, then the driver decided to get out and do a jaunty little tap dance over the rest of his body, and the driver was not svelte or overwhelmingly talented.

“Uh huh,” she says, not sounding sympathetic at all, but her hand squeezes Alec’s a little too tight to be comfortable. “You’ll be fine, you big baby. My best guess is backup arrived about a minute after you lost consciousness. We’ve been running fluids since you arrived.”

He's afraid to ask, but he does. “And Magnus?”

“They caught him,” Izzy says quietly. “He’s on his way to Rikers now.”

Alec isn’t sure how to feel about it. He got him. “Great,” Alec says. “Guess I should be happy.”

“Brother,” Izzy says and gives his hand another squeeze. “I’ve known you your whole life, and I’ve seen you scared and content and sad, but I’ve never seen you happy.”

“Never?” he asks, but she’s not telling him anything he doesn’t already know. It’s a little tragic, how unsurprised he is.

“Except maybe this past year. You haven’t been happy, but close, I think.”

Izzy told his coworkers and boss that he was slipped a sedative, but neglected to mention the mode of transmission. For all intents and purposes, he’s a hero, the rookie who brought down the infamous criminal, Magnus Bane. And even if they can’t make the theft stick, they’ve got him on resisting arrest and assaulting an agent. Which is to say, Magnus is absolutely fucked. He’ll do twenty years at minimum. American prisons are infinitely harder to escape than stone jails in Bavaria, especially since Alec has no doubt Magnus will be in solitary in maximum security.

Magnus is stronger than most; he can probably keep himself sane for a year or two.

And then it’ll just be him, alone in a cell for 23 hours, his brilliant mind and magnificent soul wasting away in the silence.

Alec’s chest aches in an entirely new way. He rolls over and closes his eyes, feels Izzy kiss him on the forehead before leaving the room. The monitor next to his bed beeps, a doctor is paged overhead, and someone in high heels walks past his door. Life goes on.

  
\---

  
The hospital releases him the next day and still feeling dizzy and unsure of himself, he confesses everything to Jace, which is the worst possible thing he can do.

At the end of the day, he cannot, in good conscience, keep working the case. He’s compromised; he feels too much for Magnus and can’t be objective. Besides, he has to write up his report and he knows there’ll be questions about exactly how Magnus subdued him.

Jace, in all of his renowned wisdom, offers his hot take, while juggling two burritos. He took a personal day to look after his brother, but Alec really wished he hadn’t.

“Don’t be stupid,” Jace says, taking a bite. “Bang it out if you have to, but don’t tank your career.”

“Bang it out?” Alec repeats incredulously. Just when he thinks Jace couldn’t be grosser, he says something to Alec like “Bang it out.”

“Seriously, buddy, conjugal that shit. Hit it and quit it.”

“Aside from the fact that it’s ethically questionable, morally shady, and very definitely illegal--" Jace shrugs in a what-can-you-do manner, and Alec continues, _irate_ , “ --I don’t know why I’m surprised. I shouldn’t expect good advice from anybody that unironically calls their mouth a mouth-hole.”

“That was just the once!”

“Or people that not so secretly lust after their partners.”

“I don’t know how this became a discussion about my love life,” Jace complains.

“Well, I’ve got some really good advice for you: Bang. It. Out.”

“Okay, that feels seriously demeaning when it’s aimed at me and Clary.”

Alec isn’t going to get a real apology; he’d stopped waiting for those at least twelve years ago, but Jace does quietly nudge his extra burrito in Alec’s direction.

“I can’t believe they let you have a gun,” Alec mutters and takes the peace offering.

  
\---

  
The following Monday, he writes up his report and includes every detail he can recall. Most every detail.

He leaves out the gentle sweep of Magnus’ eyelashes, the way his stubble felt against Alec’s chin, the exact softness of his lips. He turns it in, hands trembling, and drinks six cups of coffee until he feels ready to shake right out of his chair.

When Aldertree calls him to his office, he gets his ass ripped and leaves the office feeling about six inches shorter, but he’s not suspended just yet, which is really Fed lingo for “you’re fired and get the hell out.” There’s a reason people who are “temporarily suspended” have to clean out their desks. Alec should probably take his favorite pens, anyway, just in case.

He’s reassigned to the Cave, a cavernous warehouse stuffed with the most depressingly boring seized evidence in existence. Alec peers into a box and sees a thousand glass eyeballs staring back him and notes from the box that it‘s number three out of twenty-five and shudders. He‘s basically in Siberia, the place the FBI sticks all the agents they‘re not sure what else to do with. He’s basically being spanked and put in timeout, and if the metaphor needs further evidence, Alec pulls a mannequin hand out of the next box. Criminals really aren’t what they used to be.

In short, his job is bagging and tagging endless stolen and counterfeit goods until the investigation is concluded, but there’s a certain peace to that, too. At least he can sleep at night. Mostly.

He sits down at the cramped desk and starts sorting eyeballs.

 

\---

  
On his first day off, he makes arrangements to see Magnus at Rikers Island where he’s awaiting trial.

“Orange really isn’t your color,” Alec says, suppressing a wince. Jesus, he’s indelicate.

“Alexander,” Magnus says, sounding exhausted, hands cuffed in front of him on the metal table. “I never wanted you to see me this way.”

Outside of his fancy clothes, stripped of all his bravado, he looks younger, vulnerable. He still looks wonderful to Alec. “Have you been okay in here?” Alec asks, maybe stupidly, he’s not sure. He knows shamefully little about jail conditions.

“My lawyers told me you confessed to the kiss and that you’ve been transferred out of White Collar. I’m sorry, Alexander.”

“Don’t be. It was my choice.” Alec means it, too. He might have been utterly delusional and lying to himself, but there was a part of him that knew from the first time he met Magnus that he couldn’t be impartial or professional, and he’d chosen to stay on the case anyway. Alec eyes the grim cinderblock walls. “So…what have you been up to?” Something about being in the same room with Magnus just makes stupidity fly out of his mouth.

“I’m afraid when I’m not traipsing all over the world and evading the law, I’m really quite boring.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“You once asked me why I don’t work with the same crews again.”

“Yes, and as I recall, you hung up on me.”

Magnus takes a deep, ragged breath. “Do you know you’re the only visitor I’ve had? Everyone I know is on the run or in prison or dead. If you really want to know why, I’ll tell you.”

Alec leans forward. Of course, he wants to know why. He wants to know everything about Magnus, because he finds Magnus arrogant and vulnerable, hard and soft, clever and foolhardy. And Alec is hopelessly, stupidly ensnared in his web. He is the one puzzle that Alec has never been able to solve, a riddle that Alec finds endlessly fascinating, a challenge in a life that Alec has methodically laid out to never challenge him, and he has turned his life upside down for the absolute drunken thrill of the press of his lips.

“ _Yes_ ,” Alec says.

Magnus looks up at him with bleak eyes. When he answers, it's almost a sob. “Because they didn’t want me.”

Alec feels his heart squeeze tight, aching painfully. “How? You’re one of the best--”

“When I started out, I’d be added to established crews that needed an extra member for a one-off job. After it was finished, we’d all go our separate ways. There was no revelry afterward, no celebratory party. They left and kept in contact with each other and I would find a new a job and new one after that. After a while, I became known as a loner, that guy you contact for a high-risk, high-reward job and then never see again. Camille was the only one that ever wanted me back.”

“Until she didn’t.”

Magnus nods his head. “Until she didn’t.” He laughs, but it’s a hollow, pained sound. “Believe it or not, you’ve been the one constant in my life for a long while, Alexander.”

And Magnus has become his. They have become inextricably tangled in each other’s lives, messy and unsure of themselves, not easily defined. Alec finds himself on shaky footing, bewildered by how much Magnus means to him.

“I’m not a good person,” Magnus says. “Don’t kid yourself.”

Alec wonders who convinced him that. Alec thinks about his past boyfriends, who he has largely ignored; his co-workers, who he has kept at arms-length and barely knows their names; his siblings, who he rarely confides in. They’re both maybe just sort of okay people, not really great, but not terrible either, and circumstance and opportunity have put them on opposite sides of the table.

Magnus’ hair is messy, uncombed, his wrists chafed from the handcuffs, and his eyes red-rimmed. This isn’t him, not the whole truth of him, not the shiny con man who stole millions for the sheer fun of it, but it’s part of him, too, all the same.

For the first time, Alec thinks he can reconcile the two.

Alec finally sees him, not just what Magnus wants him to see, and it’s blinding, complex, and _glorious_.

“Okay,” Alec says. “Okay.” He’d tossed and turned last night, agonized over whether he was doing the right thing, and hadn’t been sure, not until this very moment, of what he would do. He leans down and pulls a folder out of his briefcase and slides it across the table towards Magnus. “Read these,” he says.

Magnus flips the folder open and skims the top two pages. His eyes dart up to Alec’s. “Are you sure about this?”

Alec shrugs. “Nope,” he says honestly. “It may not work, but I guess we have to try. I’ll let you look over those and you can call me later.” He chuckles. “I guess you know my number?”

“Thank you, Alexander,” Magnus says softly.

“Yeah,” Alec says and rubs the back of his neck. He has no clue how or when it happened, but it’s undeniably true: “I guess I’m your crew now.”

  
\---

  
Alec gets out of work, punches the time card and grabs his lunchbox and coat, bracing himself for the biting wind. Fuck New York, he’s going to retire to Aruba, if he doesn’t work until he literally drops dead on the job, chasing criminals with his walker. Both are equally likely.

Jace has taken to packing his lunches. Today it was two raw hot dogs wrapped in a paper towel, a bag of fruit snacks, and a jar of pickles. He said that was Alec’s vegetable serving for the day. The sad thing is, it’s probably a better lunch than Alec would have packed for himself. Jace is ridiculous, an absolute menace, and brings a terrifyingly new definition to the term “mentally fit for duty,” but he is a good brother.

He’s always, always had Alec’s back.

He gets through security, even though the really expensive seized evidence isn’t kept in the warehouse. He can’t imagine what anyone would want with four dozen knockoff breast implants. Well, Jace would probably enjoy them.

At the foot of the stairs, is a man in slim-cut black pants, a purple jacket and, bafflingly, suspenders hanging down. Who wears suspenders for any other purpose than to hold pants up?

Oh, right, Magnus.

Magnus turns towards him.

With the assault charged dropped, all they really had him on was resisting arrest and trespassing on private property. He’s doing his two-year stint as a CI with a tracking anklet, confined to a two-mile radius, as set by the precedent in the files Alec managed to scrounge up. Of course, if he steps outside the radius, he’s booking it back to prison to finish out his two years and an additional four. Magnus assures Alec he’s quite happy here.

In light of Alec’s report, the DA decided to drop the charges of assault against an agent. Not, because, as Magnus suggested, Alec kind of agreed to it. (“You knew I was going to try something!” Magnus said. That doesn’t sound right,” Alec replied.) But mostly because of the sheer embarrassment to the Bureau if word got out an agent was making out with a suspect and got drugged as a result. Alec's still an urban legend, whispered about at night at Quantico in shadowy dorms. 

Regardless, Alec caught one of the most notorious criminals of the twenty-first century. In the eyes of his bosses, he’s still kind of a major fuck-up, but one they’d like to keep quiet. It’s hard to say how the OPR investigation into his actions regarding the case is going to swing, but Alec can’t bring himself to care much.

Alec thinks, if he can ride this storm out, he’ll transfer to Organized Crime, and start from the bottom again. He’s got the strength and determination, and for the first time, he wants to feel like he’s making a real difference. A life without passion isn’t a life worth living. Magnus taught him that.

Magnus also taught him how to hotwire a Lamborghini, but Alec doesn’t have to use _all_  of his new skills.

Of course, Jace is disappointed that Alec won’t have to write Magnus soppy love letters like the prison bunnies that regularly cruise _Mugshots Monthly_ looking for a soulful face. Alec is mostly grateful he won’t have to have any weird conjugal visits in a sad trailer, bring Magnus muffins on Sundays, and top up his commissary so Magnus can buy toothbrushes to turn into shivs.

But he would have done it for Magnus, all of it and even more. He suspects he’s in love with Magnus, every messy part of him.

After his two years are up, Magnus could technically leave, scott free. They‘ve never been able to build any other solid cases against him. He could go pursue Camille again. Alec’s heard whispers that she’s in Bulgaria now, having left her arms dealer for a candlestick maker. Alec wonders if it’s a euphemism for something involving pornography.

Magnus could rob the Louvre, Harry Winston’s, steal the Crown Jewels from atop the Queen’s head -- he’s capable of all of it. Magnus thinks those days are behind him, but Alec’s not convinced.

What they have is the here and now, Magnus’ arm tucked into his, heading back to Alec’s apartment.

Alec isn’t sure if there are truly happily ever afters for men like him and Magnus, but he’ll take what he can get and be damn grateful for it.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The useless dawn finds me in a deserted street-corner; I have outlived the night.  
> II  
> What can I hold you with?  
> …  
> I offer you the bitterness of a man who has looked long and long at the lonely moon.  
> …  
> I offer you the loyalty of a man who has never been loyal.  
> I offer you that kernel of myself that I have saved, somehow--the central heart that deals not in words, traffics not with dreams, and is untouched by time, by joy, by adversities.  
> …  
> I offer you explanations of yourself, theories about yourself, authentic and surprising news of yourself.  
> I can give you my loneliness, my darkness, the hunger of my heart; I am trying to bribe you with uncertainty, with danger, with defeat.
> 
> \- Two English Poems by Jorge Luis Borges (1934)


	6. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hope ya'll enjoyed the ride. :)

 

  
The office throws a party the day Magnus’ tracking anklet comes off.

Magnus tells Alec about it later, pushing a piece of cake he smuggled out of the office towards him. A couple of years ago, Alec might have bitched about risking getting into trouble over goddamn cake, but not anymore. He’s learned not to sweat the small stuff.

Jace and Clary are coming by later to celebrate, and Izzy will come over after her shift at the hospital ends. Alec worked overtime to be free tonight, just wrapped up his first case with Organized Crime. He even has a partner who’s not too afraid to work with him. Maia’s great.

Alec has avoided asking Magnus what he plans to do after he gets his anklet off, except in roundabout ways, because bullets don’t scare him, but the thought of waking up without Magnus leaves him shaky and sick.

Magnus, who has been acting sketchier than usual, doesn’t seem inclined to share with the class.

Alec’s getting the wine glasses down from the cabinet when Magnus stops him and hands him a small gift.

“What’s this for?” Alec asks, taking the colorful parcel. It’s been nearly three years, and he still can’t get over Magnus’ fancy wrapping paper.

They argue all the time. Alec disagrees with Magnus’ shaky morals, and Magnus calls Alec a self-righteous asshole, which is actually pretty fair. But Magnus has brought color, excitement, and surprise to Alec’s life, has taught him to move out of the black and white, and take up permanent residence in the gray. He turns the gift in his hands, studying it from each angle carefully.

Magnus blows out an irritated breath. “Would you just open it already?”

Alec peels off the paper and takes the top off. There’s a white card inside, which is always how Magnus has reached out to Alec, the only way he knows how to bridge the distance between them. The thick, cream-colored card reads, _Magnus Bane, Security Consultant_

“I’ve already got my first job lined up,” Magnus says, hands fluttering nervously and zipping from one cabinet to the next, pulling down plates and serving platters.

It reminds Alec of the first Christmas Magnus spent with Alec and his siblings. When Izzy handed him a gift, Magnus had jumped up and started cleaning up dishes until Alec had to follow him into the kitchen and ask him what was wrong. Magnus had stood there, staring at the package like it was an unexploded landmine, while quietly explaining to Alec he’d never gotten a Christmas present before -- not for a long time, at least.

Alec follows him around the kitchen now, ducking beneath cabinet doors to keep him in his line of sight. “Oh yeah? Tell me about it.”

“The Lombard Gallery.”

Alec laughs. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“They were quite interested to know how I managed to rob them-- twice.” Magnus fiddles with the glasses and rearranges them restlessly. Alec grabs his hands and holds him still. This is too important for them to fuck up playing games.

“So you’re staying in New York.”

Magnus looks up at him then, dark eyes wide and frightened. “All my stuff is here,” he says plaintively.

“Well, I wouldn’t want you to have to move your stuff. Moving trucks can be such a pain.”

“So many takeout options nearby.”

“You’re very multi-cultural,” Alec agrees, a grin twitching at the corners of his mouth.

“You’re here, too, I guess.”

“I am,” Alec says, “and I’m here for as long as you want me.”

“I thought you couldn’t be stolen,” Magnus huffs.

“Love can’t be stolen or forged,” Alec says. “Real love? It has to be given. And I do love you, Magnus.”

“Alexander,” Magnus says in that quiet way that Alec loves so much, hushed and reverent like he can’t believe he’s been handed this treasure. He kisses Alec then, lips warm and soft.

Alec isn’t sure what he wants his future to look like anymore. He doesn’t want to be Section Chief, like his parents always insisted, but he knows he wants Magnus there, every step of the way. He’s flying high and free, totally without a map and only one brilliant star to guide him.

Their story isn’t over yet, not by a long shot.

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
